The Bullet With Your Name On It
by Damagoed
Summary: Nothing makes you want to live like being dead. John Watson comes to terms with being shot and other things. Please Review. Complete for now!
1. Chapter 1

The bullet clearly labelled "Captain John H Watson RAMC" had knocked him flying. He had felt his bones splinter into a billion needles as he hit the ground. For a moment he felt as though he was underwater, the sounds coming in echoing bubbles. Then his head broke the surface and he heard screams, shouts, gunfire. Someone was undoing his body armour, releasing the tight Velcro straps. He felt a rush of cool air over his sweaty body as the armour was thrown aside.

"Captain? Can you hear me? John? John stay with me." He looked into an unfamiliar pair of eyes that looked silvery grey in the smoke. The world started to sink underwater again and in the final moments as he watched the blackness creeping up from his feet until his field of vision contained nothing but the stranger's eyes, he thought desperately:

"Please God, let me live."


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a year since he'd been shot. A year that had melted in vagaries of operations, of learning to use his left arm again, he was left handed and his Doctors' handwriting had not been improved any. The physiotherapist was nice; she was young and pretty and smelt of vanilla.

In fact everyone had been really nice. Really nice and ordinary and boring. And there was nothing to take his mind off the blackness that had swallowed him as he bled out into the sand.

The psychiatrist looked at him. She knew he was lying or at the very least not telling the truth.

"So John, what have you been doing?"

"Nothing. Nothing ever happens to me."

It had been a bit of a shock bumping into Mike Stamford, not only because Mike, the snake hipped star of the cross country squad, had got fat, but because John was sure someone had told him Mike had died of a Heart-attack three years ago.

And then without warning John Watson was hit by another bullet, one called Sherlock Holmes. On reflection that one did more damage than the one that smashed his shoulder. One minute John Watson was trying to work out the cleanest and most convenient way to kill himself. The next he literally hit the ground running. Not just running, flying, dancing, kicking and screaming. Like he had been born again and then baptised in champagne and flames.

Oh God yes! That was what he wanted. Needed.

And when he had to shoot, when the world had narrowed to the width of a gun barrel, then John Watson found he could aim and fire, without doubts and shaking hands. Knowing that with that bullet he could save the man who saved him.

John Watson squeezed the trigger and killed his self doubt, his psychosomatic limp and murderous Cab driver dead. Not bad with one bullet.


	3. Chapter 3

John Watson did not have a brilliant relationship with his Sister. Far from it. But he was confident that Harry would never, ever ask one of his friends to spy on him. Ever.

Mycroft Holmes was rather intimidating. He was a lot taller than John, which wasn't so much of a problem, as everyone was a lot taller than John. It was actually his Umbrella that bothered John the most. It was the kind of Umbrella that just had to contain a concealed sword, its blade laced with deadly, untraceable poison. And if Sherlock knew 89 ways to dispose of a body, John suspected Mycroft probably knew 90.

Even so he had refused. Point blank. No way. He would not spy on Sherlock no matter what money was involved. The first time he had no idea who the tall, elegant man in the expensive suit was, although he should have "Deducted" from the facts presented.

The second time he knew who he was. Sherlock's Arch Enemy. His Big Brother. Big Brother is watching? Maybe? John didn't care. John knew that he was alive, more alive than he had ever been, and that was down to Sherlock. He wasn't sure if that constituted a happy announcement, but it gave him a warm feeling inside.

"My brother doesn't deserve you Dr Watson. But I will warn you, people who hang around Sherlock, tend to get hurt."

"Is that a threat?"

"No. A statement of fact. He's dangerous to know. I only have your own safety in mind."

"And who has Sherlock's safety in mind? I'd like to go now please. I don't want your money."

Because some things money just can't buy. John Watson's honour for one.


	4. Chapter 4

Not only did it seem that there were bullets that had your name on them. The statement also seemed to apply to Crossbow Bolts as well. And that was really a lot not good.

John's relationships with Women had always ended in variations on the theme of disaster. But never had one date managed to go so spectacularly wrong. Then again he had never been on a double date with Sherlock and his Brain before. If John was cynical and he was certainly considering giving it a try in the very near future, he would think Sherlock had planned the whole thing in order to ruin his evening with Sarah. He sometimes wished he could just have a normal life.

John was tied to a chair, something that hadn't happened to him since Medical School, and certainly never whilst he was sober and still wearing trousers. Right there and then John really wished he was back at St. Bart's, 21 years old and duct-taped naked to the Pool Table.

He hoped Sarah wouldn't think he was a coward when he started pleading for their lives, asking "please, please, please don't kill us". On the outside John Watson was snivelling, begging, undignified. On the inside the razor sharp focus of the Soldier had kicked in once more. He was buying time. Time to think. Time to act. If his would-be murderers had taken a brief moment to really look at John they would have thought it strange that whilst his mouth was begging and his body was squirming, the hands that were tied to the chair were perfectly still. Sherlock would have noticed. Sherlock did notice.

Sarah was crying silently with fear. The sand rapidly emptying from the wound in the side of the hessian bag. He wasn't quite strong enough to break the chair, if he had been taller, bigger, bulkier, he might have done it. As it was John Watson, whose nickname in basic training had been "Funsize" had only one option left. He lurched forwards, trying to get in between Sarah and the crossbow. He wished he could have been just three inches taller.

xxxxx

"You do know if you had been three inches taller you'd be dead right now?" Sherlock looked down at his flatmate who was stuffing cold takeaway into his mouth, he assumed in some attempt to bring on a growth spurt.

"What?"

"Both times. If you had been three inches taller the bullet in your shoulder would have gone straight into your heart. The crossbow would have hit you in the side of the head."

"Oh." John shoved another forkful of noodles into his mouth.

"You do know it's very unlikely for an adult male to grow taller after they have reached thirty?"

"Really?"

"I think you are exactly the right height." Sherlock attempted his version of smiling.

"You do?"

"Yes, just perfect. Can I have a Prawn Cracker?" Sherlock slid down onto the sofa next to John.

After that John Watson stopped wishing for things he was never going to get.


	5. Chapter 5

John had never been great at hiding his disappointment. Like the Christmas when he was eleven and had desperately wanted a Microscope and had got a Chopper Bike Instead. So he knew it would be written all over his face how he felt about Sherlock. How the revelation that everything was just one big experiment to Sherlock Holmes was possibly the biggest disappointment of his life.

Sherlock didn't care about people. And "people" was a collective term that included John Watson. And John Watson actually felt sick about that.

"Don't turn people into heroes John." But it was more than that.

John realised he was an idiot. A total idiot for ever thinking that Sherlock was or could be better than the people he chased after. John had killed that Taxi Driver because the Taxi Driver had killed, murdered, without caring. But was Sherlock any better than that? Really? And by association was John any better? Had John shot the wrong man?

So he stumbled blindly through the city twilight trying to make it all stop bouncing around his head, wondering if one day Sherlock would really murder someone, if he hadn't already.

And so John hardly noticed when he was grabbed from behind and the sweet smelling cloth was clamped over his nose. And he hardly struggled.

Because inside John was wondering if he really cared all that much either?


	6. Chapter 6

So this was how it was all going to end? Not on the battlefield in blood and sand as he had hoped. Not with a crossbow bolt thorough his skull as he had feared. Not even in bed surrounded by his imaginary wife and children as he had sometimes dreamt. No. It was all going to end with him helpless in a swimming pool. And for some reason he was unbelievably mad about that.

The list of ordinance with John's name on it included Bullets, Crossbow Bolts and strap on explosive vests. But none of those bothered him greatly. Destruction as an individual had never really bothered him that much. But now he as looking at a bullet that had two names on it. An invitation to dance with death once more.

T_he Grim Reaper cordially invites John Watson and Sherlock Holmes to die._

Perhaps, John thought, he should have died earlier? God alone knows how many times he had come close? In the heat and dust of the desert; by his own hand in a dingy flat in Gant's Hill; by a crossbow shot by the Black Lotus. How many times could you outrun your own death? It seemed now that Death had caught him up.

Maybe the best thing to do was to turn and face it. To stop running.

He nodded at Sherlock. They were out of time.

"You were wrong Sherlock. You do care."

"Of course I do John." And he fired.

The world erupted into a cloud of concrete and water. John was flying through the air. He slammed into something hard and felt his shoulder tear open and his bones turn into a billion splinters. He fell backwards, lungs burning, the sounds of the collapsing building turning to bubbling echoes. And he could hear the helicopters coming in overhead.

"John? Come on John. Captain Watson? Stay with me. Can you hear me?" The ground under his back was gritty and wet. Bright sunlight and silver grey eyes looked down at him through the smoke and dust.

"Captain Watson?" The army medic was pressing down heavily on John's shoulder, trying to stem the flow of blood with one hand whilst he prepped a syringe with the other. The medic was young, high cheekbones, silver eyes, a dark curl slipping from under his Kevlar helmet. And the left breast pocket of his jacket had a name on it: HOLMES.

"No!" John hissed, as blood bubbled between his teeth. "Please God, let me live with him."

He felt the needle push into his arm and didn't know if he was alive or dead.


	7. Chapter 7

John felt warm and fuzzy around the edges like his whole world had been knitted. There was a slow bleeping noise in his ear which got increasingly annoying as he lay trying to open his eyes. His eyelids seemed just too heavy. Someone was holding his hand, stroking his knuckles with their thumb. It took a supreme effort to finally open his eyes; his sight was sticky and unfocused.

"John? " The voice was familiar, soft, whispering.

"Sarah?" She smiled at him.

"Oh John." She began stroking his face; he could hear the rasp of his stubble as Sarah's gentle hand moved along his jaw. For a moment he relaxed into her caress, the pillowy world around him feeling as though it was not quite real. He felt his eyes slowly closing again, his mind gently retreating from what he assumed was reality. But which reality? The one with Sherlock, or the one without?

Suddenly the soft bubble wrapping was full of splinters. That was better, pain made him focus.

"Sherlock? Where is he?" Sarah's gaze moved from John's face. For the first time John realised there were more people in the room. He swivelled his stiff neck to look towards the door and saw a tall man leaning against the wall. For a second John thought it was Sherlock, but only a second.

"Mycroft? Where's Sherlock?" John struggled to sit up, pushing Sarah away, wondering why the simple task of getting himself vertical was so damned difficult.

"John, darling..."

"Where is he?" he made it out of the bed, only to collapse on the floor in a mass of tubes and wires, faintly aware of the burning pain in his side and the spreading pool of warm, wetness around him. His legs didn't seem to want to support him anymore.

"Doctor Watson." Mycroft looked truly terrible, he had a good five days worth of gingery stubble over his face and had replaced his usual suit with an obviously expensive but badly fitting jumper. "Welcome back. I really would advise you stay in bed."

"Where's Sherlock? I need to see him now." A team of nurses had arrived and had hoisted John rather unceremoniously off of the floor, and were busying themselves plugging him back in to various machines and monitors.

"John. I'm so sorry..." Sarah had tears in her eyes.

"Sorry? What's going on?"

"John. The explosion... You...you're..." Sarah must have told hundreds of people bad news before and yet now, faced with telling John Watson she just couldn't get the words out. She looked desperately to Mycroft, who opened his mouth to speak but didn't make a sound. John's stomach clenched, the muscles tightening in expectation of the blow that was on its way.

Sherlock was dead.

Sarah was gibbering, Mycroft was lost for words and Sherlock was dead.

"Just tell me!" John knew his temper was one very short fuse away from exploding, which was probably not fair on anyone. He just did not understand. "Is this real?"

"Of course it's real John. Why ever would it not be?" Sherlock's pyjama clad frame stood in the doorway. A patch over one eye, leaning heavily on a hospital issue walking cane, but otherwise gloriously, imperfectly alive and real. "They think you're paralysed. You're not. It's psychosomatic. Again. I keep telling them that. But they don't listen. No one listens."

"They just talk?" Sherlock limped over to John's bed.

"Thank you for saving my life John. You are my hero. And I know you will never disappoint me." he bent down and kissed John gently on the forehead. "And that will give everyone something else to talk about! people do little else you know?"


	8. Chapter 8

John had no recollection of the explosion. Just that horrible moment when he thought it had all been a dream, when he thought there was no Sherlock Holmes and that he was back bleeding to death in the heat of Afghanistan. As if he had been blown back to hell.

From what he pieced together, when Sherlock had fired the gun, John had taken it upon himself to push Sherlock in to the pool. He had pushed Sherlock so hard that he had re-broken his collarbone, this time forcing the splintered ends of bone through the already weakened skin. A second explosion, probably from the boiler in the pool, which was an old fashioned gas fired job, had sent John flying before he had been able to dive into the relative safety of the deep end.

All they had found of James Moriarty was a finger and the shredded remains of a suit jacket. he really hoped that meant he was dead.

John was nothing if not determined. And if you really scratched the surface he was probably a little bit obstinate as well. Not two of his best traits until they were teamed up together in the face of adversity. And John was determined he was going to walk again. Not just walk, but run and dance across the London skyline with Sherlock. Because if he had to stay in a Wheelchair, he was no use to Sherlock. If he had to drag himself around on crutches he was no use to Sherlock. Sherlock needed him. Needed someone to run with him. And that someone was John Watson.

It took a month of Physiotherapy, with Sherlock watching from the sidelines, telling him it was all in his head and being as irritating as possible before John got so mad he had marched right up to him absolutely ready to smack him in the face. And realised that his crutches were leant against the wall some ten feet away.

"Told you." Sherlock smirked.

"Yes. Yes you did."

"Come on then John. LeStrade's just sent me a cry for help. The Game is back on!"


	9. Chapter 9

John Watson was many things. A soldier and a Doctor by profession. A little brother. A friend. He was a survivor; some might even say a hero.

There were those who knew him to be a man of honour and quiet unflinching courage. Those who knew of his passion and his honesty. Even those who knew John Watson was not to be messed with.

There were those very few that knew somewhere inside there was a bewildered little boy who was still trying to figure out how the world and everything in it worked.

Even fewer than that, a minority of one in fact knew the truth of John Watson. John Watson was the man that you could rely on every time. John Watson was the man that would face down every bullet, every bomb, every fist, everything anyone threw at him. John Watson would always be the last man standing at your side.

John Watson was Kipling's thousandth man. And the only one that knew it was Sherlock Holmes.

ONE man in a thousand, Solomon says.  
>Will stick more close than a brother.<br>And it's worth while seeking him half your days  
>If you find him before the other.<p>

Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend  
>On what the world sees in you,<br>But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend  
>With the whole round world agin you.<p>

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show  
>Will settle the finding for 'ee.<br>Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go  
>By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.<p>

But if he finds you and you find him,  
>The rest of the world don't matter;<br>For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim  
>With you in any water.<p>

You can use his purse with no more talk  
>Than he uses yours for his spendings,<br>And laugh and meet in your daily walk  
>As though there had been no lendings.<p>

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call  
>For silver and gold in their dealings;<br>But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all  
>Because you can show him your feelings.<p>

His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,  
>In season or out of season.<br>Stand up and back it in all men's sight  
>With that for your only reason!<p>

Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide  
>The shame or mocking or laughter,<br>But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side  
>To the gallows-foot - and after!<p>

A/N: The Thousandth Man belongs to Rudyard Kipling.


End file.
